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85. Mary Shelley - The Original Goth Girl · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: You're listening to you an Airwave media podcast. Hi everybody,
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Speaker 1: and welcome to Who Did What Now? The history podcast
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Speaker 1: that's not your history class with me, your host Kertie Charlewood,
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Speaker 1: History Harlotte and reader of books. Did you miss me?
0:31
Speaker 1: Because I blood you missed you. Oh it's been so long.
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Speaker 1: It's been what like a month maybe since I last recorded.
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Speaker 1: And yeah, even then, it was a struggle. It was
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Speaker 1: so so tough. Like I remember having my friend Paul
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Speaker 1: on because it took us several hours to record because
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Speaker 1: I had to keep taking breaks and like dealing with
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Speaker 1: the pain in my mouth, my jaw, in my throat,
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Speaker 1: Like it got to the point, I think a couple
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Speaker 1: of weeks ago, after going to three doctors that my mouth,
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Speaker 1: my palette, and my tonsils ended up ulcerated. And I
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Speaker 1: see this third doctor who's like, first question he goes
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Speaker 1: to me, is are you stressed? Sir? Doctor, sir, I
1:22
Speaker 1: have ADHD in anxiety. Stress is my default, you know, speed,
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Speaker 1: I just I just so. Then he's like, this is
1:31
Speaker 1: definitely a symptom of an underlying issue and he orders
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Speaker 1: like a blood work done, right, So I go to
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Speaker 1: the nurse. I'm sitting down. I'm getting ready to get
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Speaker 1: my bloods and she takes one look at me and goes, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna order a few more. Have you eaten this morning?
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Speaker 1: I look no. She's like, great, I can beat it
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Speaker 1: around for fasting and will check you for this, does
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Speaker 1: and this, and she's scribbling all these notes, adding like
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Speaker 1: four or five more tests on. It was a good view.
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Speaker 1: And yeah, I get a phone call from the doctor going, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but we needed to come in for more bloods.
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Speaker 1: So that's what I'm doing tomorrow. I'm getting more bloods taken.
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Speaker 1: It was so sweet. He was like, I'm sorry, and
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Speaker 1: I've spent so much money on medicine the past week.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I can talk again, which is good, but
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Speaker 1: still it's so expensive. And I have to get an
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Speaker 1: ultrasound on my lover because I'm apparently my liver is
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Speaker 1: not looking good, like the stuff isn't adding up. But
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Speaker 1: there's a possibility. And I just have an autoimmune disease,
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Speaker 1: which would explain things. And at least stuff like that's manageable.
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Speaker 1: You know, it could be something much worse, but we'll
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Speaker 1: find it. We'll find out. So I'm trying not to
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Speaker 1: stress about it too much. I mean, the money situation
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Speaker 1: is stressing me out quite a bit. But also it's
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Speaker 1: my birthday next week. So if anybody would like to
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Speaker 1: donate to, my PayPal link is in the description down below. Listen,
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Speaker 1: I'm collecting pennies at this point, rubbing together and hoping
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Speaker 1: for luck. It's just been it's drained me. It's drained
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Speaker 1: my bank account so much, and I still have like
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Speaker 1: one final payment left for my kids holiday for their Christmas.
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Speaker 1: I'm taking them to Disneyland Paris for four days, and
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Speaker 1: it's all, it's all, it's all. I'm struggling a bit,
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Speaker 1: especially considering the person I was seeing owes me so
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Speaker 1: much money, and I genuinely don't know if I'm ever
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Speaker 1: going to see it back. And that is it's tough,
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Speaker 1: not just because my relationship ended the day before an
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Speaker 1: award ceremony I had to go to with my boss,
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Speaker 1: who had forked out for all these tickets for us.
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Speaker 1: I ended up taking a friend instead, so it wasn't
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Speaker 1: too bad, but it's still it's been a lot going
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Speaker 1: on and it's just kind of taking its toll on me.
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Speaker 1: I think, and you know what, I think, I might
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Speaker 1: just do like a live video and just talk about
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Speaker 1: stuff so people can ask me questions and I can
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Speaker 1: fill you all in. And what's been happening? So many things,
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Speaker 1: so many things have been going on. Oh and before
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Speaker 1: I forget the live show at Hysteria with Alio Wurk
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Speaker 1: who opened for me. She's fabulous. It was so good.
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Speaker 1: It was so good. I was in pain, but I
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Speaker 1: loved it and it was fabulous and I want to
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Speaker 1: do more. I've got the bug for it now. It
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Speaker 1: didn't record. So that is the story I'm telling you
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Speaker 1: today because here's the thing. I have been dealing with
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Speaker 1: all this other stuff, so I didn't have time to
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Speaker 1: get research together or new research, and I wanted to
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Speaker 1: make sure that I brought something back to you because
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Speaker 1: it's been so long and you deserve But I know
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Speaker 1: what you're thinking. You're thinking about your gibber jabber in
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Speaker 1: fact me, in fact you, I will, but first we've
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Speaker 1: got to get our source on. Our sources are the
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Speaker 1: journals of Mary Shelley by Mary Shelley, Finding Mary Shelley
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Speaker 1: in her Letters by Betty T. Bennett. Mary Shelley in
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Speaker 1: Her Times, also by Betty T. Bennett. Mary Shelley by
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Speaker 1: Muriel Spark, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwins Shelley, The Female Author, Between
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Speaker 1: Public and Private Spheres by Mitzi Miles, Mary Shelley, Her Life,
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Speaker 1: Her Fiction, Her Monsters by Anne K. Meller, Mary Shelley,
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Speaker 1: Romance and Reality by Emily Sunstein and of course our
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Speaker 1: favorites Biography dot com and History dot Com. You'll sitting
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Speaker 1: comfortably good, then let's begin. Mary Shelley was born Mary
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Speaker 1: Wollstonecraft Godwin in Summerstown, London, in seventeen ninety seven at
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Speaker 1: eleven twenty pm. You're thinking, jeez, kitty, that's fucking specific.
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Speaker 1: It is. It is specific because her father wrote it
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Speaker 1: in his diary. You know how little information we have
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Speaker 1: of women from the past. Women from the past. It's fine,
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Speaker 1: It's okay, women from the past. Yeah, we're lucky to
6:35
Speaker 1: get a birthday. We're lucky to get a month, you know.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes we're lucky to get a fucking year. And here
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Speaker 1: we have a time of birth like that is some
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Speaker 1: for studious timekeeping. It's all I'm saying, very good at
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Speaker 1: your notes. So her mother is Mary Wolstoncraft, who's basically
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Speaker 1: seen as the first feminist. She's this feminist forehilosopher, writer, educator,
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Speaker 1: and her father is philosopher, novelist and journalist William Godwin.
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Speaker 1: So Mary is Mary Wollstonecraft's second child, and her first
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Speaker 1: daughter is called Fanny. So Fanny was the product of
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Speaker 1: this previous relationship she had with us Dur in France,
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Speaker 1: who they were living together. Fanny was born out of wedlock,
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Speaker 1: and then himself just buckled off basically and left her
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Speaker 1: to deal with the child in her own. Mary Wollstonecraft.
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Speaker 1: She actually dies not long after giving birth. Basically a
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Speaker 1: bit of the placenta gets stuck and so she catches
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Speaker 1: a fever and she dies, which honestly isn't too unusual
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Speaker 1: for the time, Like one of the leading causes of
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Speaker 1: death and women in the past apart from men, is childbirth.
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Speaker 1: So Mary's parents are into this concept of free love.
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Speaker 1: That's right. It existed well before Woodstock. So neither of
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Speaker 1: them wanted to get married. But it's the seventeen hundreds,
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Speaker 1: and they did not want Mary to be born illegitimate
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Speaker 1: because they knew even then that the easiest thing to
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Speaker 1: gain and the hardest thing to lose if you were
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Speaker 1: women is a reputation Now you'd think with Mary's mother
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Speaker 1: dying in childbirth or just after that, this would sort
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Speaker 1: of leave a shadow on Mary's life and bring up
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Speaker 1: some kind of resentment. But Mary isn't put off by death,
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Speaker 1: and her mother's grave is her happy place, like it's
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Speaker 1: her safe space, it's her good place to go, you know.
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Speaker 1: And she even learns to write her own name by
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Speaker 1: tracing the letters on her mother's headstone. And she basically
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Speaker 1: spends and probably a bit too much time there, but
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Speaker 1: she's there now. When Mary is one year old, Godwin,
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Speaker 1: her father publishes memoirs of the author of a Vindication
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Speaker 1: of the Rights of a Woman. Now, Godwin, he does
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Speaker 1: this in good faith, right, he is trying to share
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Speaker 1: this powerful, wonderful, just woman and her life, her history,
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Speaker 1: her ideas, her plans. Like he thinks he's doing a
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Speaker 1: good thing. He thinks the world is ready for this.
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Speaker 1: Spoiler alert, it's not so. Yeah, he does this in
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Speaker 1: good faith, but it absolutely destroys Mary Wolstonecraft's reputation. Like
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Speaker 1: her family, her blood relatives are Leavid like they are
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Speaker 1: well pessed, you know. And her name is mud for
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Speaker 1: like two centuries because men are tits. Because her life
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Speaker 1: is seen as scandalous and full of debauchery because she
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Speaker 1: has affairs and romantic partners and an illegitimate child, as
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Speaker 1: if men didn't have those two but of course society.
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Speaker 1: So that being said, the first three years of Mary's
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Speaker 1: life are relatively happy. She's brought up to cherish her
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Speaker 1: mother's memory, like it's not hidden from her. It's not,
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Speaker 1: you know, pushed as this awful thing or that you know,
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Speaker 1: baby Mary caused it. No, could you see that a lot? Like, no,
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Speaker 1: it's your fault your mother died. No, it's a crappy
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Speaker 1: surgical procedure that went wrong, like they couldn't get the
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Speaker 1: placenta out. It fucking happens, Like now there's you know,
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Speaker 1: ways to remove it. Back then not so much. Anyway.
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Speaker 1: Mary reads her mother's memoirs and works, and she's kind
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Speaker 1: of home educated, so like the first few years of
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Speaker 1: her life, it's not really a formal education. And Godwin
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Speaker 1: he's raising Mary and Fanny at this point, you know,
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Speaker 1: so he's not a dick, but he is in massive
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Speaker 1: debt and gets supported by fans. But of course the philosopher,
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Speaker 1: journalist whatever is struggling, and he feels like he can't
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Speaker 1: raise these kids alone. So when Mary is about four,
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Speaker 1: he remarries and he weds Mary Jane Claremont, a widow
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Speaker 1: with two children and a good education. And Godwin he
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Speaker 1: is devoted to his new wife, but his pals absolutely
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Speaker 1: despise he. Like they refer to her and I quote
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Speaker 1: as quick tempered and quarrelsome like maybe she's just sick
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Speaker 1: of your shit, but that's just me Anyway. Mary is
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Speaker 1: not so devoted to her stepmother, and the effectively goes
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Speaker 1: on to resent her. Basically, as the story goes, Mary
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Speaker 1: Jane Claremont preferred her own kids, Charlie and Claire, and
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Speaker 1: treated Fanny and Mary as lesser. So Mary has some
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Speaker 1: additions to her family, and her father's trying to you know,
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Speaker 1: be better, and so he sets up a publishing firm
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Speaker 1: which sold children's books, maps, games, and stationary. It does
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Speaker 1: not do well, in fact, it barely ticks over, and
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Speaker 1: Godwin ends up robing Peter to pay Paul, and this
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Speaker 1: results in Godwin almost being sent to a debtor's prison
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Speaker 1: on more than one occasion. So, you know, not exactly
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Speaker 1: the most secure of childhood's. So back to Mary's education,
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Speaker 1: her dad teaches her and then she ends up getting
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Speaker 1: a governess, although I don't know how we could afford
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Speaker 1: that considering, you know, the continuous debt. So she gets
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Speaker 1: all of this sort of rounded education just her dad's
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Speaker 1: making sure she's not an idiot. Really, he's making sure
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Speaker 1: she's smart and so on top of, you know, doing
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Speaker 1: these outings and getting this learning going on, they get visitals,
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Speaker 1: like all of these smart fellas are coming in and
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Speaker 1: effectively hosting salons around her, including Aaron Burr, sir. That's right,
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Speaker 1: the dude who shot Hamilton. He was there sharing thoughts
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Speaker 1: with Mary Shelley. Like, what this is the crossover? I
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Speaker 1: did not expect, to be honest, I mean, who expected
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Speaker 1: Aaron Burr sir? Listen, I think it sounds better in
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Speaker 1: a Scottish accent. Aaron Burr, sir. That was very affected,
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Speaker 1: but like you know what I mean, get some with
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Speaker 1: like a nice thick accent to do it. Oh it's
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Speaker 1: so good. Anyway. When Mary's fourteen, she goes to boarding
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Speaker 1: school for six months. Mm hmm. The next year she's
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Speaker 1: being sent away to live with the political radicals of
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Speaker 1: the Baxtills up in Scotland. Was she sent away for
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Speaker 1: being bold, or was it for some malady to the
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Speaker 1: sea side, to the country, to Scotland for the good
15:00
Speaker 1: your health, of course, like dear Victorian doctors send me
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Speaker 1: to the sea, said, for my health please. I say
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Speaker 1: that as if I don't live next to like the coast.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, at this point, Mary is referred to as bold, impetuous,
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Speaker 1: and strong willed. And that's when her father like, he's
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Speaker 1: like Mary, yeah, she's she has opinions? What's he? Here's
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Speaker 1: the thing, like parents can be weird like that sometimes,
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Speaker 1: like you raise your children to have independent thought and
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Speaker 1: to question things and to have opinions, and then you
15:41
Speaker 1: are shocked that they, you know, question things and to
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Speaker 1: have opinions. But your relationship where their father is weird.
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Speaker 1: They're like simultaneously close but also really cold. It's it's
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Speaker 1: fucking weird, that's all I'm saying. So when she returned
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Speaker 1: from Scotland, when she's what sixteen, who does she meet
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Speaker 1: but Percy Bitch, I mean whips Bish Shelley. And he's
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Speaker 1: kicking about because he is a massive fanboy of Godwin.
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Speaker 1: He's a radical poet and a member of the aristocracy,
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Speaker 1: and why did Godwin keep him around? Probably because he
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Speaker 1: promised to bail him out of debt. The stepmom, however,
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Speaker 1: does not like him at all. In fact, she's like,
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Speaker 1: that's a fuck boy. And you know, I'm kind of
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Speaker 1: inclined to agree with her because Percy has been flirting
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Speaker 1: with all of the eligible maidens in the house and
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Speaker 1: she was not about that. Fanny, Claire, and Mary. So
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Speaker 1: these are all like teenage girls. Maybe Fanny's close to
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Speaker 1: our twenties at this point, but they're wrong young women. Unfortunately,
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Speaker 1: for Percy, because he was very fucking loud about his
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Speaker 1: belief in Godwin's economic policies, his family made it very
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Speaker 1: difficult for him to access the family funds. You see,
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Speaker 1: they wiren't exactly keen on him taking their hoarded wealth
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Speaker 1: and distributing it amongst the disadvantage. And after a few
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Speaker 1: months it becomes bloody apparent that Percy is not going
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Speaker 1: to pay off her dad's debt, and uh, Godwin is well,
17:43
Speaker 1: naturally he's pissed. He's like, you, Pinky promised me you
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Speaker 1: were gonna help me out. Now he's already angry, but
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Speaker 1: he is about to get even angry because Percy is
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Speaker 1: having rendezvous with Mary. Let's break this dead a wee bit.
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Speaker 1: First of all, she's sixteen, he's twenty one. Too much
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Speaker 1: of an age gap. I'm sorry at that age too much. Secondly,
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Speaker 1: he's married with a kid and another on the way,
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Speaker 1: so they are spending time together. They are promenading around
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Speaker 1: the graveyard and it becomes their meeting spot, their special place,
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Speaker 1: so special in fact, that og gothbabe Mary Wolstencraft Godwin
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Speaker 1: loses her virginity on her mother's grave on the twenty
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Speaker 1: sixth of June eighteen fourteen. They declare their love for
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Speaker 1: each other and they do the deed upon the very
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Speaker 1: grave of her mother, an activist who argued and believed
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Speaker 1: in free love. It's I don't know, symbolic or something
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Speaker 1: a field the need to stipulate this. Percy is still
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Speaker 1: married and actively married at that. Remember this is June,
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Speaker 1: and in March of that year he remarried Harriet because
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Speaker 1: there was questions about the legality of their Edinburgh wedding.
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Speaker 1: So they get remarried, right, he doubled down and then
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Speaker 1: impregnated her, So yeah, not that is strange to be honest. Now, Percy,
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Speaker 1: he decides to tell Godwin that he is going to
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Speaker 1: leave his pregnant wife for Godwin's sixteen year old daughter.
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Speaker 1: Now Godwin, as you might imagine, is less than thrilled
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Speaker 1: and straight up banishes him and then bands Mary from
19:55
Speaker 1: seeing him. It's almost as if here we go, It's
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Speaker 1: almost as if parents aren't super keen on hearing your
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Speaker 1: enacting free love with their offspring. Nobody wants to hear
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Speaker 1: the details of you blinking their daughter, and if they do,
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Speaker 1: that is not a family tree you should want to
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Speaker 1: be a part of. Just over a month after this event,
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Speaker 1: or is ither to call it launted, tanky panky, Mary
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Speaker 1: and Percy elope to France, I say, Elope. They run
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Speaker 1: off to France and bring along Mary's step sister, Claire Claremont,
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Speaker 1: who Percy may or may not have been shagging. Now, Mary,
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Speaker 1: I understand that you're sixteen and in love, but maybe,
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Speaker 1: you know, maybe don't abscorne to Europe with this dude
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Speaker 1: who has a pregnant wife who's also knocking boots with
20:57
Speaker 1: your sister. Yeah, that's not a good time. That's a
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Speaker 1: Jerry Springer episode. AnyWho. Before they go, Percy arranges alone
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Speaker 1: what she gives to Godwin and Percy's pregnant wife Harriet,
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Speaker 1: basically as a way to appease them, while Percy, Mary
21:18
Speaker 1: and Claire fuck off to France. Now of all of
21:23
Speaker 1: the people to try and play the hero in this
21:25
Speaker 1: scenario and a bold and you know, worthy move, I
21:32
Speaker 1: must say, the stepmom follows them to Calai. That being said,
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Speaker 1: Percy somehow persuades her that it's all good, and so
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Speaker 1: she just goes back home, like without Mary or clear like,
21:52
Speaker 1: how good was his gift of the gab? Like, I
21:55
Speaker 1: know he's a poet, but to be that convincing to
21:58
Speaker 1: a woman who clearly takes no shit, I don't know.
22:02
Speaker 1: I don't know. So, yeah, the three Amigos traverse across
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Speaker 1: war ravaged France from Calais to Palis, and they're going
22:16
Speaker 1: by carriage, by donkey, by mule and they walk, you know,
22:22
Speaker 1: because Frances were ravaged because you know, Napoleon, that whole thing,
22:29
Speaker 1: it's the Napoleonic Wars. And this is like a really
22:33
Speaker 1: common thing. It was battlefield tourism, Like rich people would
22:40
Speaker 1: just travel around to battlefields and shit, why you should
22:45
Speaker 1: not do that? That is not a fun excursion. What
22:49
Speaker 1: is wrong with the Georgians? I mean, apart from the obvious,
22:52
Speaker 1: but oh my god, but yeah, at this point, Shelley
22:58
Speaker 1: is in massive debt, like they're running out of money,
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Speaker 1: and so he writes to Harriet, his pregnant wife, to
23:07
Speaker 1: meet him in Switzerland to give him cash, do you know,
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Speaker 1: fund his threesome, and again, in a move I can
23:18
Speaker 1: completely respect, Harriet doesn't show, and of course the three
23:25
Speaker 1: of them run out of money and they have to
23:27
Speaker 1: turn back, so they go through Germany and the Netherlands
23:32
Speaker 1: and then they're back in England by September. So this
23:36
Speaker 1: is like July that they've buckled off, so they had
23:41
Speaker 1: a couple months tour in they're having a good time clearly.
23:46
Speaker 1: Now when they return to England, Mary is pregnant and
23:51
Speaker 1: she is not doing well, something that is not helped
23:57
Speaker 1: by her father because he wants absolutely nothing to do
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Speaker 1: with them and Mary, so she's confused at this and
24:06
Speaker 1: she's upset because she's practicing what he preached. You know,
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Speaker 1: it's free in love, it's this, it's that, and upon
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Speaker 1: seeing it and his daughter, he is not keen. So Mary,
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Speaker 1: Percy and Claire they're brooke. They've got no support and
24:28
Speaker 1: they're stuck together. So they all move in together and
24:34
Speaker 1: rather living together. Well, Mary is pregnant and Percy is
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Speaker 1: stooping her stepsister, Harriet, his wife, gives birth to his son,
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Speaker 1: and Percy he is loving his best life. He is
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Speaker 1: talking about it, and he's excited about it, and he
24:55
Speaker 1: is just going on and on and on. He is
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Speaker 1: ecstatic at this news. I mean, he's also dodging creditors
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Speaker 1: and leaving Mary feeling abandoned, like he's leaving her alone
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Speaker 1: to deal with all this stuff, with all of her
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Speaker 1: pregnancy hormones. We're talking about how amazing the fact that
25:17
Speaker 1: he's got a son is, like it's it's it's not
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Speaker 1: easy for her. And again she's young, she's a teenager.
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Speaker 1: And so through all of this, Percy's friend Hogg becomes
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Speaker 1: a close friend of Mary. Percy wanted them to become lovers,
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Speaker 1: but their relationship never went further than friendship. Now, Mary
25:43
Speaker 1: she believed in free love in principle, but in practice
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Speaker 1: like she was monogamous, and she was devoted to Percy.
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Speaker 1: Now in February the following year, she gives birth to
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Speaker 1: a baby girl, Clara, who unfortunately passes away ten days later,
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Speaker 1: and Mary she is depressed and distraught and Hawkin ends
26:17
Speaker 1: up moving in for a bit because frankly she needs
26:22
Speaker 1: the support. She needs it, and so by May of
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Speaker 1: that year, Mary demands that Claire moves out because she
26:30
Speaker 1: just can't she can't deal with it anymore. In August
26:34
Speaker 1: of that year, Mary and Percy decide to move and
26:39
Speaker 1: he publishes a poem that is not well received, and surprise, surprise,
26:46
Speaker 1: it is not long before Mary is pregnant again. By
26:53
Speaker 1: January eighteen sixteen, Mary gives birth to William Shelley and
26:59
Speaker 1: Percy is fucking delighted about having another son, but he
27:08
Speaker 1: is trying to hash out like money negotiations with his
27:11
Speaker 1: father and with Godwin and Harriet, and it's a very
27:17
Speaker 1: stressful situation and Mary, who's postpardum, has to deal with
27:22
Speaker 1: all of this shit, and on top of that, she
27:26
Speaker 1: has to deal with Percy's full mental breakdown, like he's
27:32
Speaker 1: you know, having milkdowns and hallucinations. And now, I'm not
27:38
Speaker 1: one to put someone down when they're suffering a mental illness. However,
27:44
Speaker 1: with Percy, no, if it isn't the consequences of my
27:50
Speaker 1: own actions, And because Percy's preference is to run away
27:56
Speaker 1: from his problems instead of you know actively dealing with them.
28:00
Speaker 1: He is consistently talking about leaving for the continent. In
28:11
Speaker 1: May eighteen sixteen, Mary Percy, their son William, and Claire
28:17
Speaker 1: go to Geneva to spend the summer with Byron, who
28:23
Speaker 1: got Claire pregnant and she just kind of wanted to
28:26
Speaker 1: come along because of this. So they get to Geneva
28:32
Speaker 1: and whetherwise it's not great. It's known as the Year
28:37
Speaker 1: without Summer. It is wet, rainy and absolutely dismal, or
28:44
Speaker 1: dricht as my mother would call it. So Byron and
28:50
Speaker 1: his doctor John William Polidori rented a villa close to
28:54
Speaker 1: Lake Geneva, and Percy rented the smaller maison shipwy and
29:01
Speaker 1: it is a frolicking time. They're boating, they're having late
29:07
Speaker 1: night soirees, they're sharing stories. And one night they're sitting
29:13
Speaker 1: around a log fire telling each other ghost stories and
29:18
Speaker 1: Byron dares no double Dal's no. Virginia dares everyone to
29:25
Speaker 1: write a ghost story, and Mary she struggles to think
29:31
Speaker 1: of anything. Like every day she's asked if she has
29:34
Speaker 1: a story, and every day she says no. And she's
29:39
Speaker 1: like actually getting embarrassed at this point because she's thinking
29:42
Speaker 1: I should have thought of something, and every day writer's block.
29:47
Speaker 1: It's blank. There's not uncommon to her. And then one
29:51
Speaker 1: day they're discussing galvanism, which is basically, you know, electro
29:56
Speaker 1: shocking a corpse, because if you shove electric current through
30:00
Speaker 1: a body, it'll move. There'll be twitching going on. Remind
30:06
Speaker 1: me to tell you the story about the zombie kitten sometime.
30:09
Speaker 1: But anyway, one night Mary cannot sleep and she is
30:15
Speaker 1: fueled by nightmails, and so she starts writing, and she writes.
30:22
Speaker 1: It starts off as this short story. On June sixteenth,
30:29
Speaker 1: eighteen sixteen, Mary Shelley writes her first draft of Frankenstein.
30:38
Speaker 1: Now she ends up writing it and rewriting it, you know,
30:42
Speaker 1: with the encouragement of her husband, I might add Frankenstein
30:48
Speaker 1: or the modern Prometheus. Now there's arguments about Percy's involvement,
30:56
Speaker 1: but if you actually look at the work, it's no
31:00
Speaker 1: more than what a regular editor would do. You know.
31:04
Speaker 1: It's the thing in Percy and Mary, they were known
31:08
Speaker 1: to like edit each other's work, but it is more
31:13
Speaker 1: often assumed that he has a much greater involvement, like
31:18
Speaker 1: especially over time, because no one wanted to admit that
31:22
Speaker 1: a woman invented an entire genre, science fiction. A sixteen seventeen,
31:33
Speaker 1: seventeen year old girl invents an entire genre on a day,
31:42
Speaker 1: like Frankenstein itself. The book isn't published until eighteen eighteen,
31:50
Speaker 1: and it's published anonymously, and people assume it's Percy, so
31:55
Speaker 1: much so because it's dedicated to William Godwin, you know,
32:01
Speaker 1: Mary's father, but everyone knew that was Percy's idol. So
32:06
Speaker 1: because of this, people just assume it's Percy. And they
32:12
Speaker 1: do this so much that she just goes, fuck this
32:17
Speaker 1: for a game of Soldiers, and Mary claims it as
32:20
Speaker 1: her own. And you remember as well, at this point,
32:23
Speaker 1: women would have had to have written under a norm
32:26
Speaker 1: diplome anyway at this point, because you know, women writing books,
32:31
Speaker 1: but how do they have babies? Apparently pretty easily, look
32:35
Speaker 1: at Mary. I'm just saying. But anyway, back to Frankenstein. Now,
32:43
Speaker 1: what I love about the novel is that Victor Frankenstein
32:49
Speaker 1: spends most of it sulking. Like I'm not joking. He
32:54
Speaker 1: spends ninety percent of Frankenstein the Modern Prometheus, just brooding
33:01
Speaker 1: around all pouty and petulant, instead of literally doing anything else.
33:09
Speaker 1: Like direct quote for you. My only solace was silence,
33:16
Speaker 1: deep dark deathlike silence. Alright there, emo boy, Victor Frankenstein,
33:26
Speaker 1: Like it's almost as EF. Don't quote me. I'm just kidding.
33:34
Speaker 1: You can absolutely quote me. Yeah, it's almost as EF.
33:39
Speaker 1: Mary Shelley was inspired by someone she knew, Byron Listen.
33:49
Speaker 1: Byron was an ours who deserves everything he gets. Fuck
33:53
Speaker 1: that guy, I mean, Byron is a barrel bisexual mess,
34:00
Speaker 1: the honestly massive gay crisis and the epitome of fuck
34:06
Speaker 1: around and find out. Because he did. He fucked around
34:10
Speaker 1: and he found out. Not only did he have to
34:15
Speaker 1: leave England in scandal, he shagged his sister. I'm sorry, Nope,
34:23
Speaker 1: that's incorrect, half sister. Apparently the distinction is important, although
34:31
Speaker 1: I do not really see the point in arguing semantics
34:34
Speaker 1: when it comes to ejaculating into a blood relative. And
34:41
Speaker 1: oh yeah, Byron. Another fun fact view Byron was so
34:45
Speaker 1: worried about getting fat he replaced water with vinegar, which
34:51
Speaker 1: is actually what caused his fever, which killed him. But
34:56
Speaker 1: back to Mary, so in September eighteen sixteen, they returned
35:02
Speaker 1: to England and moved to Bath and Claire ends up
35:07
Speaker 1: living nearby Mary and Percy basically to hide Claire's pregnancy
35:14
Speaker 1: because again they're trying to protect our reputation. So when
35:20
Speaker 1: they're there in Bath, Mary gets letters from her older sister,
35:24
Speaker 1: her half sister, Fanny, and these letters are depressing letters,
35:32
Speaker 1: unhappy life letters. And on October ninth they receive what
35:40
Speaker 1: is referred to as an alarming letter, which caused Percy
35:45
Speaker 1: to just bot out the house. He went racing to
35:49
Speaker 1: find her. He did not. The very next day, Fanny
35:57
Speaker 1: Emily's body was discovered at an inn in Swansea in Wales.
36:04
Speaker 1: She had left a suicide note and an empty bottle
36:08
Speaker 1: of Laudanum. You see, Fanny was in love with Percy,
36:17
Speaker 1: and this made it sting all the more because this
36:21
Speaker 1: sent Mary into a deep depression. And things were only
36:26
Speaker 1: going to get worse because on the tenth of December,
36:32
Speaker 1: Harriet Shelley, Percy's wife, her body is found in the
36:37
Speaker 1: Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park. She had been left by
36:42
Speaker 1: her new lover, pregnant and awash with melancholy, she drowned herself. Now,
36:53
Speaker 1: because of society, both of these deaths were hushed up
37:00
Speaker 1: because the families did not want this getting it because well,
37:04
Speaker 1: scandal and everybody loves a gossip in the Georgian era. Now,
37:10
Speaker 1: with Harriet no longer in the picture, Percy is trying
37:14
Speaker 1: to get custody of his children and Mary is full
37:17
Speaker 1: on board supporting that. Who's not supporting that is everybody else,
37:23
Speaker 1: like everybody, family members, clergy, like the kids end up
37:28
Speaker 1: with the clergy because yeah, So, in order to strengthen
37:34
Speaker 1: Percy's case, on the thirtieth of December, twenty days after
37:42
Speaker 1: Harriet's body is discovered, Mary and Percy are married at
37:47
Speaker 1: Saint Mildred's Church and lo and behold, this may shock you.
37:53
Speaker 1: Mary is pregnant again. So in January eighteen seventeen, clear
37:58
Speaker 1: claremont Get gives birth to a baby girl, Alba, and
38:05
Speaker 1: by March Percy is declared unfit to be a parent,
38:10
Speaker 1: and yeah, this is when the church takes the kids.
38:14
Speaker 1: That's obviously before Percy's father gets involved. But yeah, they're like, no,
38:18
Speaker 1: this is not this is not happening. So the Shelleys
38:25
Speaker 1: moved to Marlow with Claire and baby Alba, and in
38:31
Speaker 1: September of that year, Mary gives birth to a baby girl,
38:36
Speaker 1: Clara Ivina, and sort of during this time, as well,
38:39
Speaker 1: Mary is editing journals and finishing off Frankenstein. But everybody's
38:47
Speaker 1: health at this point not tip top. People are not
38:50
Speaker 1: doing great. You know, Mary's not doing well, and Percy
38:56
Speaker 1: is often boggering off because he's trying to avoid Debter's prison,
39:02
Speaker 1: just like Mary's dad was. And Percy finally gets his
39:06
Speaker 1: wish and they move to the continent. And by the continent,
39:12
Speaker 1: I'm in continental Europe because that's just what they called
39:15
Speaker 1: back then, because you know, they felt like it. So
39:21
Speaker 1: in March eighteen eighteen, Claire Alba, Mary, Percy, Volume, and
39:27
Speaker 1: Clara two point oh go to Italy. And the reason
39:32
Speaker 1: they're going there is to hand Alba off to Byron,
39:36
Speaker 1: who agrees to raise her, but only if Claire has
39:41
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing to do with her. So yeah, he takes her.
39:46
Speaker 1: He pushes all his money into it, and he changes
39:48
Speaker 1: her name to Allegra because he wants to, because he
39:53
Speaker 1: didn't like Alba, so he changed her name because he could.
40:00
Speaker 1: And so Claire and the Shelleys are traveling about their roving.
40:06
Speaker 1: They are can it out about this collecting people and
40:10
Speaker 1: they're moving from place to place like in a way,
40:14
Speaker 1: it's kind of like they're trying to create their own
40:16
Speaker 1: sort of community, but they're not doing it well. And yeah, tragedy.
40:26
Speaker 1: Tragedy strikes in Italy because in September eighteen eighteen, Clara
40:35
Speaker 1: passes away from dysentery, and in June eighteen nineteen in Rome,
40:45
Speaker 1: William passes away, and shockingly enough, Mary is depressed as fuck,
40:57
Speaker 1: and Percy writes, because he's an absolute gobshite. Oh Mary,
41:04
Speaker 1: where hast thou gone? Where hast thou gone? I don't know, Percy.
41:13
Speaker 1: For somebody who is supposed to be incredibly intelligent, have
41:16
Speaker 1: you considered reading the fucking room for once in your
41:20
Speaker 1: entire privileged life? Where's the audacity? It is up? Percy
41:24
Speaker 1: bis Shelley's us. I don't know what about this situation
41:29
Speaker 1: seems difficult to comprehend, but maybe just maybe the strain
41:36
Speaker 1: and the pain of losing all of her children. That's right,
41:40
Speaker 1: you know your children. All of her children are dead,
41:44
Speaker 1: Her sister is dead, her life is full of scandal,
41:51
Speaker 1: and the person who is supposed to be her partner,
41:54
Speaker 1: her lover, her supporter, is fucking her other sister. I
41:59
Speaker 1: don't know, Percy, what the fuck do you think? Also
42:03
Speaker 1: in addition, furthermore, just to show how much actual audacity
42:07
Speaker 1: this fucking arso has, he's still having sex with Mary,
42:14
Speaker 1: because by the twelfth of November eighteen nineteen, there's another baby,
42:23
Speaker 1: Percy Florence Shelley is born. And Mary Shelley like she
42:30
Speaker 1: is an involved mother, like she takes time with her children,
42:35
Speaker 1: She breastfed them, she was an involved mother. She was
42:41
Speaker 1: a good mother for the most part, or at the
42:44
Speaker 1: very bast she tried to be, because she genuinely cared,
42:48
Speaker 1: she loved her family. Italy was supposed to be this
42:55
Speaker 1: respite of political freedom where they wouldn't be judged, where
43:03
Speaker 1: they would have freedom to discuss ideas and be creative,
43:08
Speaker 1: and it would be a distraction from all of their loss.
43:15
Speaker 1: And Mary ends up in this sort of love hate
43:17
Speaker 1: sort of feeling for Italy because it was supposed to
43:22
Speaker 1: help her husband and it took her children from her,
43:27
Speaker 1: like it was supposed to heal him, not take from her,
43:34
Speaker 1: and it did. And that's how she felt. But in Italy,
43:40
Speaker 1: at least she did have the option to get creative.
43:43
Speaker 1: And she writes, she fucking writes, she writes Matilda and Vilperaja,
43:49
Speaker 1: which are novels, and she writes plays like Prosepone and Midas.
43:55
Speaker 1: And she does this although she is ill or pregnant
43:59
Speaker 1: or both, and all the while Percy was dipping his
44:03
Speaker 1: spoon in every other Honeypop and Mary. She was not
44:07
Speaker 1: having physical affairs like she had male friends. But the closeness,
44:14
Speaker 1: that closeness, it is more aligned with love and not platonic.
44:18
Speaker 1: So it's more like emotional affairs. I suppose nothing physical,
44:27
Speaker 1: but anyway, but yes, the Shelley's Inclare. They go to
44:32
Speaker 1: Naples and in eighteen nineteen Percy registers a child, Elena
44:40
Speaker 1: Adelaide Shelley, who's two months old, and he registers her
44:45
Speaker 1: to him and Mary. Except it's not Mary's. There's a
44:51
Speaker 1: possibility that it's a servant's, or it's Clare's, or maybe
44:56
Speaker 1: they just found her and decided to take her with them.
45:00
Speaker 1: Maybe it's somewhere kind of adoption. Maybe it was one
45:03
Speaker 1: of Byron's. But Mary says she'd know of it was
45:09
Speaker 1: clear that was pregnant, so this kid wasn't hers, and
45:14
Speaker 1: it wasn't clear us was just another child, just probably
45:24
Speaker 1: the result of Percy Shaggun as servant, but more tragedy.
45:32
Speaker 1: Elena Adelaide passes away in June eighteen twenty and Mary
45:38
Speaker 1: travels from Naples to Rome and there she writes Valerius
45:45
Speaker 1: the Reanimated Roman. Now she may be getting some write
45:49
Speaker 1: and done, but Mary is not happy at this point.
45:55
Speaker 1: She is struggling, and she continues to struggle for the
45:59
Speaker 1: next years. But in eighteen twenty two, Mary is pregnant
46:05
Speaker 1: again and she moves to the Villa Magny with Percy
46:10
Speaker 1: Claire and the Williams Edward and Jane Williams. And it's
46:19
Speaker 1: during this summer the Byron Saadsword that Allegra died of typhus,
46:28
Speaker 1: and not long after that Mary suffers a miscarriage also
46:33
Speaker 1: known by the official medical term as a spontaneous abortion,
46:38
Speaker 1: which almost kills her. She loses a fuck ton of blood. Luckily,
46:44
Speaker 1: Percy is only half of an idiot and puts her
46:47
Speaker 1: in an ice bath instead of just waiting for the
46:50
Speaker 1: doctor to show up and you know, do nothing. So
46:54
Speaker 1: he might be a dick, but he did save her life,
46:58
Speaker 1: so he gets one one for you, Percy. So Mary
47:07
Speaker 1: shockingly is depressed, like she's suffering and struggling because you know,
47:13
Speaker 1: she's had a miscarriage, her children are dead, her adopted
47:17
Speaker 1: child is dead, her sister is dead. You're shagging her
47:22
Speaker 1: other sister. And she's so fucking alone. And because she's
47:28
Speaker 1: struggling with all of this, Percy is spending more time
47:34
Speaker 1: with Jane Williams, and a lot of his poetry at
47:38
Speaker 1: this point is written about Jane. Nothing like Robin Salt
47:43
Speaker 1: in the Wind is there so yeah? Over in Italy,
47:49
Speaker 1: a bunch of the romantics there together, and they plan
47:54
Speaker 1: to launch a radical magazine called The Liberal. And on
47:58
Speaker 1: the eighth of July eighteen twenty two, Percy goes out
48:04
Speaker 1: on a boat with Edward Williams and a boat boy
48:09
Speaker 1: and when they're out there is this massive storm, and
48:12
Speaker 1: ten days later, the bodies wash up in a beach
48:18
Speaker 1: and Byron, just using his critical thinking skills, creates a
48:24
Speaker 1: funeral pyre and cremates Percy's body on the beach. Now,
48:32
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, Percy's heart does not burn, It just calcifies.
48:44
Speaker 1: And this calcified heart is taken by Mary and she
48:49
Speaker 1: wraps it up in Percy's love poems and takes it
48:52
Speaker 1: with her and ends up using it as a paperweight.
48:57
Speaker 1: And after suffering yet another tragedy in her life. Mary
49:01
Speaker 1: is widowed and she goes to live with Lee Hunt
49:04
Speaker 1: and her family in Genoa for a while, and Mary
49:09
Speaker 1: decides that she wants to make a living by writing,
49:14
Speaker 1: and by July eighteen twenty three, she says goodbye to
49:18
Speaker 1: Genoa and returns to England and stays with her father
49:22
Speaker 1: and stepmom because clearly they've worked out their issues at
49:26
Speaker 1: this point, or at the least they've matured, one can hope.
49:33
Speaker 1: And she tries to get some money for her son,
49:37
Speaker 1: Percy Florence Shelley, and she does this by contacting his
49:43
Speaker 1: paternal grandfather, Percy Shelley's dad, Sir Timothy Shelley, and Timothy
49:51
Speaker 1: promises cash if he's appointed Percy Florence's guardian, and Mary
49:59
Speaker 1: is not about that. She straightway says no, like nope,
50:04
Speaker 1: You're not getting them, because again she's a really involved mum.
50:09
Speaker 1: And eventually she does manage to acquire a small allowance,
50:14
Speaker 1: but there are some strings attached to this because Sir
50:19
Speaker 1: Timothy does not want more scandal upon his family name.
50:25
Speaker 1: He vows to stop the allowance if any biography of
50:28
Speaker 1: Percy Shelley is published by Mary, or if Mary contributes
50:34
Speaker 1: and is known to and then things change up a
50:38
Speaker 1: week bit because Charles Shelley, the son of Percy's first marriage,
50:45
Speaker 1: passes away in eighteen twenty six, thus making Percy Florence
50:49
Speaker 1: Shelley the heir to the Shelley estate. Now this causes
50:56
Speaker 1: Sir Timothy to raise the allowance, but he is still
50:59
Speaker 1: a day to Mary and Mary she's she's trying to
51:06
Speaker 1: keep her friendships going, she's trying to be involved, and
51:10
Speaker 1: she's still close with Jane Williams for a time. This
51:17
Speaker 1: friendship ends when Jane tells her that Percy preferred her
51:22
Speaker 1: to Mary because Mary was an inadequate wife. Now some
51:30
Speaker 1: people say violence is not the answer. I say it
51:34
Speaker 1: depends on what the question is. And I think Mary
51:36
Speaker 1: should have bitch slapped her because fuck you, Jane Williams.
51:41
Speaker 1: That is a dick move. You're an absolute prick, Like
51:44
Speaker 1: who does that? Anyway, Mary cuts her ties, moves on
51:51
Speaker 1: with her life, and in eighteen twenty six publishes The
51:54
Speaker 1: Last Man, and she assists her pal and writing memoirs
52:01
Speaker 1: for Byron and Percy. What people don't know she's involved,
52:07
Speaker 1: She's just helping it. Priva was there man prove so.
52:16
Speaker 1: Sometime after this, she meets American actor John Howard Payne
52:22
Speaker 1: and he proposes to her, and this is absolutely savage.
52:30
Speaker 1: She rejects him, saying that after being married to one genius,
52:34
Speaker 1: she could only marry another. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley. That
52:43
Speaker 1: was harsh. I mean, it's funny, but it was harsh.
52:49
Speaker 1: Now Mary might be, you know, an absolutely salty bitch,
52:53
Speaker 1: but she's also like an ardent feminist before fism really existed,
53:01
Speaker 1: Like she is following in the foots of her mother.
53:04
Speaker 1: And she is a friend to the LGBTQ because what
53:10
Speaker 1: she does is in eighteen twenty seven, add to the
53:17
Speaker 1: cup the date I couldn't remember. In eighteen twenty seven,
53:21
Speaker 1: she helps Isabelle Robinson and Mary Diana Dodds whose pen
53:25
Speaker 1: name is David Lindsay, to escape to Franz's husband and wife.
53:30
Speaker 1: You know, she gets them false passports and everything, because
53:36
Speaker 1: she's she's just her help in the lesbians. What you
53:39
Speaker 1: should always do, always ensure to help your lesbians. That's
53:43
Speaker 1: just facts. But yeah, as proved that no good deed
53:48
Speaker 1: goes unpunished. Mary contracts smallpox when visiting them in Paris,
53:56
Speaker 1: and Mary is basically busy as hell, like she is
54:02
Speaker 1: writing and editing in eighteen thirty She's Got the Fortunes
54:06
Speaker 1: of Perkin Warbeck in eighteen thirty five, The Door, eighteen
54:10
Speaker 1: thirty seven Faulkner. She contributes to the Cabinet Cyclopedia, Ladies magazines,
54:18
Speaker 1: and after her father dies in eighteen thirty six, she
54:21
Speaker 1: puts together's letters and works on a memoir. And she
54:25
Speaker 1: works in this for two fucking years and then she
54:29
Speaker 1: gives up. He wrote so many journals, so many letters,
54:33
Speaker 1: and yeah, all the while she's doing this, she is
54:38
Speaker 1: republishing and promoting her late husband's poetry like she is
54:45
Speaker 1: doing all of this work. And she is working as
54:47
Speaker 1: an editor and a writer. And not only is she
54:52
Speaker 1: doing all of this, she is constantly giving money to
54:56
Speaker 1: women in need, women thrown aside for alleged a alterary,
55:01
Speaker 1: single mother's children put out of wedlock, like she is there.
55:06
Speaker 1: She is helping, She's helping lesbian's elope, like she is
55:10
Speaker 1: in the trenches. Now. Throughout the rest of her life,
55:17
Speaker 1: Mary never remarries like she's you know, she's very much
55:25
Speaker 1: in the thoat process. That Percy was the love of
55:27
Speaker 1: her life, even though he put her through absolute hell,
55:34
Speaker 1: not saying I can relate, but I'm just saying so.
55:38
Speaker 1: She jokes about marrying Edward Trelawney, but she ends up
55:44
Speaker 1: disagreeing with him because she ain't happy with his work
55:47
Speaker 1: on Percy's biography, and she is. She spends most of
55:55
Speaker 1: her time ensuring that her surviving child has everything he needs.
56:01
Speaker 1: She sends him to public school in Harrow, and it's
56:04
Speaker 1: really expensive and she's only got a small allowance, so
56:07
Speaker 1: in order to avoid the fees because it's like a
56:10
Speaker 1: boarding school, she moves to Harrow so that he can
56:15
Speaker 1: go as a day student and they can still get
56:17
Speaker 1: that really good education but doesn't have the extra like
56:22
Speaker 1: financial strain on them now as they get older. By
56:31
Speaker 1: eighteen forty and eighteen forty two, Mary and her son
56:36
Speaker 1: Percy travel across Europe and she is writing these journals
56:42
Speaker 1: like all about her adventures and time over there, and
56:45
Speaker 1: it's it's a pretty it's a pretty cute read. Now.
56:50
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty five, Mary is blackmailed thrice. First, I
56:59
Speaker 1: Dude threatens to public letter she sent him, until son's
57:02
Speaker 1: pal ends up bribing the police chief to seize the
57:06
Speaker 1: papers and destroy them all The second one is this
57:11
Speaker 1: fella claims to be the illegitimate son of Lord Byron
57:14
Speaker 1: and has her in like Percy's letters, like he's got
57:18
Speaker 1: a collection of them, and so she just pays them off.
57:23
Speaker 1: And then Percy's cousin says that he's written an awful
57:27
Speaker 1: biography about his sensational and city life and he wants
57:33
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty pounds to not publish it, and
57:39
Speaker 1: Mary just goes no, like she just publish it. If
57:45
Speaker 1: you want me try it's fine, like go ahead. He doesn't. Yeah,
57:53
Speaker 1: so well played Mary, well played. Now in eighteen forty eight,
57:59
Speaker 1: Percy Flora Shelley marries Jane Gibson Saint John, and Mary
58:04
Speaker 1: ends up living with them in Sussex and like for
58:08
Speaker 1: a part of the year and like Chester Square in London.
58:12
Speaker 1: So when they're in London, she's in London. When they're
58:15
Speaker 1: in Sussex, she's in Sussex. And she also goes traveling
58:20
Speaker 1: with them. Now throughout this as well, from when she's
58:25
Speaker 1: like thirty nine years old, that's a lie. When she's
58:29
Speaker 1: like forty two years old, she is suffering migraines and
58:34
Speaker 1: bouts of paralysis, and this goes on for fucking years
58:42
Speaker 1: like this, like between the migraines and you know, the
58:47
Speaker 1: body freezing. It actually stops her writing and at some
58:51
Speaker 1: point even reading. And over time Mary is getting increasingly
58:56
Speaker 1: ill and it turns out she has a rain tumor.
59:02
Speaker 1: And on the first of February eighteen fifty one, Mary
59:08
Speaker 1: Shelley passes away in Chester Square, London. Now she wanted
59:17
Speaker 1: to be buried in Saint Pancras churchyard with her parents,
59:21
Speaker 1: but her son he didn't think it was good enough.
59:25
Speaker 1: He thought it was a shithole basically, and he had
59:28
Speaker 1: her buried at Saint Peter's Church which was closer to him,
59:34
Speaker 1: because he didn't want her too far from him. And
59:40
Speaker 1: on the first anniversary of her death, Percy Florence Shelley
59:47
Speaker 1: and his wife Jane they open her box desk and
59:53
Speaker 1: inside they find locks of her deceased children's hair, a
59:58
Speaker 1: shared notebook of Mary and Percy Bis Shelley, and some ashes,
1:00:06
Speaker 1: and the remains of Percy's heart wrapped in his love
1:00:12
Speaker 1: poems for her. Now, Mary Shelley, even to the modern
1:00:22
Speaker 1: day like people try and rewrite her story, They try
1:00:25
Speaker 1: and talk over her and her achievements, and they try
1:00:28
Speaker 1: to paint her as this one novel author, this one
1:00:32
Speaker 1: hit wonder as opposed to being a professional writer. She
1:00:37
Speaker 1: was a professional writer for the majority of her life.
1:00:41
Speaker 1: She was editing, she was writing, she was creating, she
1:00:44
Speaker 1: was helping others. She wrote novels, many novels, which are
1:00:50
Speaker 1: really fucking good. By the way, you should definitely read them, like,
1:00:53
Speaker 1: go check them out. They're brilliant. And she created insfection
1:01:01
Speaker 1: a teenager a teenage girl created an entire genre, and
1:01:07
Speaker 1: even in recent years, people are working hard to try
1:01:11
Speaker 1: and denounce that and cover up and act like this
1:01:14
Speaker 1: this isn't a fucking amazing achievement, and we all know
1:01:16
Speaker 1: it is. She deserves respect, she deserves to be credited
1:01:24
Speaker 1: for all of her work. And so ends the story
1:01:31
Speaker 1: of Mary Wollstonecraft, Godwin Shelley, the Ogi, Goth Pepe. Fucking
1:01:40
Speaker 1: love Mary Shelley. I do, I do, absolutely do. And
1:01:43
Speaker 1: if you liked my retelling of her tell her story
1:01:46
Speaker 1: her life, feel free to rate and review five stars
1:01:50
Speaker 1: and donate to my PayPal. I would just be kind.
1:01:53
Speaker 1: I would love so. Yeah, if you liked, rate and review,
1:01:59
Speaker 1: you can fall me on the socials. I'm on Instagram.
1:02:02
Speaker 1: And X formally known as Twitter TikTok. I'm more active
1:02:07
Speaker 1: on Instagram than other places. I'm on Facebook, but there's
1:02:12
Speaker 1: so much hassle with that right now, So if you
1:02:14
Speaker 1: really want to follow me, that's the best place to be.
1:02:17
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm recommendation time. So for listening, you should
1:02:26
Speaker 1: join the Patreon where later this week I'll be reading
1:02:30
Speaker 1: the story Murder on the Christmas Express, and I'm so
1:02:37
Speaker 1: excited for that. For reading, I am going to suggest
1:02:46
Speaker 1: the Tuesday Club Montors by Agatha Christie. And did I
1:02:52
Speaker 1: do watching or listening or for watching, go watch the Marvels. Actually,
1:02:58
Speaker 1: because it is a fu film. It's not like trauma
1:03:03
Speaker 1: and depressing. It's just good fun. It is a lighthearted
1:03:09
Speaker 1: superhero movie. Is it perfect? No, but just it's not
1:03:13
Speaker 1: as awful as people say. Is it's a good film?
1:03:16
Speaker 1: Is it great? No? But it's good and it's fun
1:03:20
Speaker 1: and not everything has to be made for straight white men.
1:03:23
Speaker 1: I'm just saying. But anyway, my voice is starting to
1:03:28
Speaker 1: go again, so I am going to bid you all
1:03:30
Speaker 1: good night. Adios of ware is them my friends? Bye bye,